


Until the Drugs Wear Off

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Use, Drugs, Endverse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 14:13:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sketch of a tree becomes something more as Dean ponders the cause and effect of Cas’s drug problems and finally comes to terms with his long-dormant feelings. </p><p>Highschool-ish Destiel AU drabble with artistic! Dean and allusions to Endverse! Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the Drugs Wear Off

The grass in the Park behind the High school is scorched dry and yellow from the summer heat. It scratches at Dean’s bare elbows where they bend and hold him upright as he sprawls out lazily on his stomach, sneakered feet kicking the air. His sketchbook lies in front of him and his fingers are smudged from the stick of charcoal his hand is working across the page. 

The drawing had started as a study of the Park’s big ancient oak tree, examining the twists and turns of gnarled bark and weather-beaten boughs, copying the shape and texture of leaves in their prime and studying the shading cast by a drowsy late-afternoon sun.

But somewhere along the way the tree has turned into a forgotten sketch of half-finished shading whilst the rough outline of Castiel strumming his guitar at the base of the trunk has grown vivid with attention and lavished detail.

The melody Cas plays is soft and melancholy but Dean barely hears it. He is lost to his own rhythm of soft charcoal strokes and the detail of Cas’s bright blue eyes focused on their craft.

He is so lost in the attention given to drawing long slender fingers with their short blunt fingernails and strumming calluses, so lost in the way the black locks curl at the tips and tumble across his forehead in careless bangs, so lost in the gentle drape of the loose blue shirt covering the smooth chest and stomach that Dean has only caught glimpses of during short awkward showers after sports, so lost in it all he doesn’t notice the silence of the abandoned guitar; doesn’t immediately notice the presence of his friend until a shadow is cast over the sketchpad and he looks up and sees Cas standing above him.

A gentle smile is on the boy’s lips as he sees the drawing and god, Dean can’t look away from those lips. He’s been catching himself staring for months and still can’t get over how soft and pink they are, never chapped or sore because Cas doesn’t chew on his lips like he does because Cas never worries like he does.

And Dean knows that part of the reason is chemical and the result of whatever fix-of-the-week Cas is tripping with this time but he still envies the way Cas doesn’t seem to feel knots of anxiety or acknowledge the worrying ebb and tug of the future, the way he walks with self-assurance and is confident in who he is and what he wants, at least until the drugs wear off.

Unlike Dean who can never seem to decide what he wants, ever. And suddenly he feels self-conscious of his drawing.

“It’s just practice,” he mutters dismissively, sitting upright and folding the sketchpad closed and flashing a quick nervous smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

But Cas sits down next to him and gently rests his hand on the pad and asks, “May I?”

Dean’s heart is accelerating at the closer proximity and he can barely nod but lets Cas open the pad back up. Cas gazes at the drawing, his fingers holding the pad sure and firm, and he is so close Dean can smell the soft herbal shampoo in his hair and the liquorice scent of a new-age plant worn around his neck with apparently evil-warding properties, but Dean knows he only wears it for the purpose of pissing off his religious family.

“This is amazing, Dean.” Cas says, smiling, his eyes wide with awe. Dean tries to hear the words but the feel of Cas’s warm breath on his skin sends a shiver down his spine and it pools and nestles somewhere lower and he gulps and shifts as Cas continues with irony in his voice, “I especially love all the detail you’ve given to the tree.” He gives Dean a sideways glance and a conspiratorial smile and Dean gets the joke and blushes ridiculously.

“Well, I was getting to it.” Dean replies, feeling a little nervous and defensive even though Cas doesn’t seem mad or annoyed with the obvious subject of the drawing, just curiously endlessly fascinated by the artist, as though Dean himself is a drawing of an enigma he could spend all day examining and unlocking.

“And it’s always best to draw the people first,” Dean adds quickly, “because they move and change and don’t linger long. The tree will always be there.”

“That’s true,” Cas says softly. He hands the pad back to Dean and leans away from him, his shoulders rolled back with arms supporting his weight as he stares at the clear blue sky above them. “People change.” But he seems suddenly wistful, eyes wandering and vague, not quite there anymore and Dean wonders if Cas is high right now but he's tired of asking the question aloud, tired of the fights it causes, so he bites his lip, and lets his mind wander. And he wonders if maybe Cas is just thinking of the brothers who became estranged when Cas changed and they didn’t, and Dean looks down, nervous, unsure of what to say if that's the case.

And he thinks of the graduation ceremony yesterday and the way College looms ever closer on the horizon and all the changes it will bring and he longs for more time. Just a few more minutes or years to spend right here to do all the things he should have done four years ago when he first met this mysterious new student who wore a cross around his neck and a smart trench coat with sensible shoes and carried a Bible like a shield.

He lifts his eyes and looks at the Cas now in front of him, the one who wears new age amulets and sandals and hemp clothing, who rolled up all the pages of his Bible into smokes long ago, the Psalms and hymns dissolving into hallucinogenic trips.

Dean thinks back to the first time Cas dared take a drag of a cigarette and he tries to remember whether he was the one who put it in his hand and whether it even matters, whether Cas wasn’t always destined to become like this, with or without his influence. And he tries not to think about how everything he touches turns to smoke and ash, tries not to think about his mother’s burning death or Cas’s bright red face as he’d coughed out his first smoke through innocent preacher-son lungs.

He thinks of the endless experimentation that had followed and the unnerving fearlessness Cas had shown, recklessly trying things even Dean didn’t dare; the resulting track mark evidence scarring Cas’s arms and lingering along with all the other bad memories.

He thinks about the various screaming withdrawals and almost-overdoses, thinks of the way Cas had lost all sense of pretence and slept and fucked around with anyone and anything to get what he wanted but he hadn’t once looked at Dean that way and Dean had tried to pretend like it didn’t matter and he didn’t care but it burned a hole in his heart like the memory of that first damned cigarette stub.

It was only when Cas’s parents had found his stash and finally kicked him out that Cas had eventually calmed it all down, into something resembling a half-clean, sometimes-stoned, organised mess.

But it’s an improvement at least and Dean supposes Cas is a work in progress, like his drawing, always changing. Blink now and you’ll miss him, blink now and he’ll have changed; for the better or the worse. 

Cas sits up and meets his eyes and smiles at Dean and there is warmth there mixed with a startling alertness and Dean is suddenly acutely aware that for once Cas isn’t the least bit stoned. And Dean catches Cas’s eyes drifting to Dean’s own lips and the world and their pasts fade into insignificance as that trembling feeling in his heart comes back around again full force and pounds in his ears and combines with the painful growing ache in his groin. 

And all he can think about is the gap between his lips and Castiel’s and he feels breathless and weightless and dizzy and full of hope and want and hesitation and he wonders for a second because what if he’s wrong and what if this isn’t right because it’s Cas and Cas is his best friend and what if this ruins everything.

He looks up into Cas’s eyes and sees the fat dilation of his pupils and he wonders for just a second if Cas is high after all, and wonders what the hell he’s experimenting with this time, but then he realises that maybe this isn’t chemical but simply the pure want of lust spiking the body’s natural drugs into chaotic confusion and maybe there’s not much difference between the two anyway.

And Dean wonders if he isn't just another new drug to Cas, just another hit to add to the list and suffer withdrawals of someday in the future.

But to Dean there is only the here and now, only the thin small gap between their lips and it is filled with electricity and magnetism and endless possibilities of a hope dared to take and Dean Winchester gently, finally, leans his head forward and kisses the boy on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. This is my first Supernatural fanfic and I didn't use a beta, so any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated :)


End file.
